


Far From Home

by Reikukaja



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Canon Universe, F/M, Fluff and Angst, I'll add more tags as i go, Implied Sexual Content, jeankasa - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-01
Updated: 2019-05-01
Packaged: 2020-02-10 15:33:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,724
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18663238
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Reikukaja/pseuds/Reikukaja
Summary: Year 854 - One Week Before Liberio.Mikasa is a contradiction, in so many ways.  The strongest of them is the most fragile and prone to crumbling. The most placid of them has emotions churning wildly beneath the surface, threatening to overwhelm her. The bravest of them is the one whose dreams leave her whimpering in her sleep - begging Eren Jaeger to come home.Manga Spoilers Ahead...





	Far From Home

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to CashmereFox for being an incredibly patient and supportive beta. I seriously can't thank you enough. <3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>   
>  [](https://imgur.com/HRp8BHh)   
>    
> 
> 
> Art by the lovely [MKrondilla](https://mkrondilla.tumblr.com/), commissioned by me for this story. <3

_Is this freedom?_

“Like this?” Mikasa asks without looking up at the two boys crouched beside her, eyes trained on her task.

“Yes!” Armin encourages. “Lift it very carefully.”  

She hums happily as she obeys, slowly lifting the overturned bucket. She bites her lip in concentration, mindful not to jostle the bucket too much in any direction. The moist sand sticks together as it slides out - keeping its shape just like Armin said it would.

Mikasa's face lights up as she grins at their success. “A sandcastle!”  

“Well it’s not much of a _castle_ yet,” Eren adds, unimpressed. “Right now it just looks like a sand _bucket_.”  

The three of them laugh for a moment before Armin issues orders for Eren to go collect another bucket full of wet sand from the shoreline. A castle is more than just one tower, after all. There is much more work to be done.

“We will make this sand bucket look more like a castle,” Armin affirms to Mikasa after Eren has run off. He kneels beside her and starts digging out small chunks off the top with his fingertips.  

Mikasa stops humming and furrows her brow, unsure of why he is messing up what they’d just been so excited about making. It isn’t long before she realizes he _is_ making it look more like a castle – or at least part of one. Before her eyes, the structure begins to resemble a tower with crenels and battlements.

She decides to join him in adding detail to the tower, and pokes a hole in the side with the tip of her finger. She’s very careful not to go too deep, though. She would never forgive herself if she caused it to collapse. She widens the hole, then makes it taller. She gives it a ledge underneath, finishing it. Castle towers should have windows, she decides before making another. A view like this one should be admired.

“Much better!” Armin exclaims proudly, brushing sand from his legs as he rises to his feet. “Now let’s see Eren call _this_ a sand bucket.”

“Where is he?” Mikasa asks, squinting as she looks up at him. She’d lost track of time. How long had they been sitting like this – fixated on their work? This was something they’d always wanted to do _together_.

The two of them look up simultaneously to scan the beach. They quickly spot Eren standing where the water meets the sand with his back to them. The bucket dangles loosely from his fingertips, seemingly forgotten.

“Eren, come back!” Armin calls out, but the wind takes his words and carries them far from his friend’s ears.

“Why is he always getting so far from us?” he asks emptily under his breath, eyes fixed on the distant figure that is his closest friend.

“I’ll get him,” Mikasa affirms, rising up from her knees. Her feet sink into the warm sand pleasantly at first, but the ground becomes colder and wetter as she advances. It feels so heavy.

She feels heavier too. Taller, stronger... older.  

She is _so tired._  

As Mikasa approaches Eren, all of the changes in his own appearance become apparent. He’s grown. His unkempt hair is longer,  his shoulders more broad... but it's still him. Right? This is still Eren.

He turns and gazes at her over his shoulder, revealing deep red gouges fanning across his cheeks starting just under eyes that are not wholly his own. Mikasa shivers violently, though it’s doubtful that the sudden drop in temperature is to blame. When did it even get so cold and overcast? It had been so warm, only moments ago. They’d been so happy...

 _“If we kill them all, does that mean... we’ll be free?”_ Eren asks as she nears him, and she knows he’s not really talking to _her._ He’s not talking to anyone, really.

Mikasa opens her mouth to answer - to tell him _he’s wrong_ \- but she’s lost her words. She’s forgotten how to speak, and her mouth hangs open uselessly as she tries desperately to remember.

_Can we really hope to kill them all?_

_Will that really make us free?_

_How far is too far?_  

_Do we have to become monsters?_

A frigid gust of wind nearly knocks her over, and she shields her face with her arm.  When she’s recovered, she finds that Eren is knee deep in the churning waters. He puts one foot in front of the other calmly, and continues moving forward. Even when he’s gone so far that the lower half of his body is submerged in the black, angry ocean, he doesn’t stop to look back at her.  

No, he wouldn’t.

Mikasa looks helplessly back to Armin, hoping he might have some idea what they should do. He sits cross-legged in the sand where she left him, but their castle is gone. No trace of it remains. Horror washes over her when she realizes Armin has changed as well. He’s grown up too, and his hair is shorter. He’s buried his face in his hands, but she can still make out the horrible markings that now cover it.  

Suddenly remembering, she turns back to Eren – who has almost completely vanished into the sea.  

 _“Please,”_ she wants to scream, but can barely manage the word. _“Come home.”_

He continues moving forward, and Mikasa’s heart sinks. He’s oblivious to the words falling from her mouth, as if she’s said nothing at all. More and more of him gradually disappears as he marches on. It’ll be his doom if he doesn’t stop. The ocean welcomes him, embracing him hungrily.

There’s nothing that can be done before the last traces of him are swallowed by the sea.

The tide begins to rise as the sky darkens. Freezing water laps at Mikasa’s feet and ankles, making her shudder as the cold pierces her skin like needles. She wants to run away but she can’t make her legs move.  She’s frozen - a statue, staring at the spot where Eren just stood. She’s strong, but the ocean isn’t something she can fight and win. She can’t escape it, either.

 _“Please,”_ Mikasa repeats hopelessly, her voice breaking with strain. _“Come home.”_  

 

**  
854**

###  _One week before Liberio_

 

There’s a kind of peace that can only be found in the early morning – a quiet that belongs solely to those final moments before darkness begins its daily surrender to the rising sun. The world is small and simple. What remains of humanity lives only within these walls. In this bed there is safety and comfort.

Safety and comfort. They’re all most people really want, when you get down to it. If these two things are guaranteed, conflict becomes unnecessary. With safety and comfort come peace and order.

There are worse things to aspire to.

Jean had certainly seen nothing _wrong_ with aiming for the Military Police when he’d joined the Training Corps all those years ago, the positions so coveted that only the top ten trainees from every district are invited to join its ranks. For those three years as a cadet, nearly every action on his part had been with the hope of scoring more points for that very reason. Funnily enough, that was why he’d started waking up early in the first place.

Marco was the one who’d gotten the bright idea that rising early might give them an advantage over their peers, and Jean wasn’t about to pass up an opportunity to improve his chances. A life in the Military Police would be one of _safety and comfort._

Jean had never been fond of mornings before enlisting in the military. His family was convinced that wouldn’t change, and he’d been inclined to agree with them. The transition period was uncomfortable, to say the least. There were times he was sure that getting devoured by a titan would be less miserable, but he’d stuck with it. Of course, it hadn’t  mattered at all that both he and Marco made the top ten. Jean ended up choosing a different path, and Marco hadn’t even lived long enough to make his choice.

For most people, safety and comfort are enough. Having those two things _should_ be enough. It might even be the perfect life, if you add a little warmth - the heat of a body to lie beside at night, and people to care about.

It’s not for everyone though. There are those who seek out excitement, who could never be satisfied within the confines of what is safe and comfortable. This is what Jean had always believed to be the defining trait of someone who joins the Survey Corps, that is... until he did it himself. Regardless of his reasons, he’d been pretty sure that decision would send him to an early grave. In hindsight, it might have saved his life.

For one, it turned out that safety had never actually been on the table to begin with. The illusion of safety, however… In truth, his own peace would have been terribly short lived - even if he _had_ gone to the MPs. His first year in the Corps made that perfectly clear.

He’d probably have been counted among the transfers for the Shiganshina operation all those years ago - volunteering for a suicide mission he was in no way equipped for. Others just like him had been so fired up by the military coup and the reveal of the awful truth surrounding the walls they had depended upon for safety. Yeah… he’d have ended up in the Survey Corps one way or another, because what is comfort if it means waiting quietly while you let the world  destroy you and everything you care about?

Right now, none of this actually matters. It doesn’t matter that the hundred-year peace the government had so proudly touted was all a lie. It doesn’t matter that the people in these walls represent a minority of the human population, or that their extinction would be welcomed by the rest of the world. It doesn’t matter that in only one week they will be carrying out a surprise attack in a foreign land for the first time in any of their lives. It doesn’t even matter that they are probably doomed to ultimately lose this war they’re about to start.

Those things will all matter soon enough, after the sun begins to rise. For now, there is peace… for some people at least.

A lot can be learned from a couple weeks of sleeping beside someone, and if Jean has learned anything about Mikasa it’s that she’s rarely at peace. It’s also very clear that a large part of her desperately wants to be.

Some nights she gasps in her sleep, crying out into fistfuls of blankets. There are nights when the tossing and turning is so severe Jean finds himself sleepily wondering if they’ll even be able to free themselves from the mess of tangled sheets come morning. He’s not about to complain, but there are plenty of other reasons he’d rather she have for staying in his bed just a little longer.

There’s warmth, for one. The cold doesn’t care that winter is supposedly behind them, and has a funny way of creeping back in the evenings and lingering through the night. There’s also company, and Jean likes to think that he is at least a _decent_ companion to spend time with.

He must be. Mikasa makes a habit of curling into him in the dead of night and clutching him tightly, her sleeping form demanding she be held. Of course, those demands are readily met.

It’s the least he can do. He’d do a hell of a lot more if he thought it would help.

Sure, they all have nightmares. What normal person wouldn’t, after seeing what they had - after _doing_ what they had? He has nightmares of his own, although he can almost never remember them. Not everyone is blessed with such forgetfulness.

There are nights Mikasa talks in her sleep, muttering words that are impossible to understand through the blankets or pillows that muffle them. Sometimes her words are perfectly clear, but it’d be better if they weren’t. It requires little imagination to guess the contents of her dreams… or who might be visiting them.

Mikasa is a contradiction, in so many ways.  The strongest of them is the most fragile and prone to crumbling. The most placid of them has emotions churning wildly beneath the surface, threatening to overwhelm her. The bravest of them is the one whose dreams leave her whimpering in her sleep - _begging Eren Jaeger to come home._

...Of course it’s Eren. Who else might she desperately, _repeatedly_ utter the words _‘Please, come home’_ to?

 _Eren isn’t here_ , Jean keeps telling himself. The thought is almost comforting, until you consider the whole objective of this upcoming operation is to bring him back. Soon, Eren _will_ be here - assuming they are successful and survive to see what happens after.

For all appearances, whatever had been between the two of them is done. Even before his sudden disappearance, he’d become more distant with his friends in the Corps - the people he’d once been closest too. He’d been spending more and more time apart from all of them, opting for different company - if any at all.

Jean stopped trying to understand Eren a long time ago. There are probably some people you can never understand, no matter how hard you try or how long you know them.

 

_“Mmf.”_

 

The abrupt sound is accompanied by the rustling of blankets as Mikasa squirms, grasping for something to cling to. Jean reaches over to comb his fingers through her hair as she rests her forehead against his shoulder. His hand makes its way down the back of her neck and shoulder before finally resting gently on her arm, his thumb absently tracing an area where the unnatural smoothness of her skin reveals a scar the darkness would otherwise hide.

It turns out that nightmares aren’t the only thing they all have in common. They have plenty of scars to go around - some more visible than others. In a fairer world, Mikasa would be marred by nothing of the sort.

Is she going to open her eyes, or drift back to sleep? Jean realizes he’s holding his breath in anticipation, and exhales slowly. It makes no difference that he’s had other mornings like this one. There’s no hope of getting used to any of this.

Maybe this is all an illusion, a trick of the mind. Maybe everything that’s happened these last couple weeks has been no more than the product of his wild, overindulgent imagination. Maybe it means nothing.

Mikasa’s eyebrows furrow slightly, and a heartbeat later her eyes begin to open. She blinks once, and again slowly before finally turning her gaze upwards to meet Jean’s.

“Morning,” he manages a whisper, though his voice cracks awkwardly as it attempts its first word of the day.  

“Mmh,” she acknowledges, before squeezing her eyes shut and turning her face into his arm sleepily. She peeks up at him again through lidded, tired eyes. “Did I wake you up?”

“You kidding?” he asks with a subtle grin, and rolls his eyes. “As if I could get _any_ sleep with you _snoring_ so loud.”

Mikasa’s mouth falls open with concern, but then she narrows her eyes at him when she realizes he’s kidding. _“Hey.”_

Jean does a poor job of concealing his amusement. Mikasa reciprocates with a muted smile of her own, before shifting her weight and lazily rolling atop him.

Maybe it means nothing. Maybe it means everything.

Eren Jaeger is a damn fool.

It’s the only explanation, and Jean becomes more sure of this with each morning he spends like this - on every occasion that she slowly lowers her lips to his and allows him to taste her. Only a fool could want more than this.

The world can be gentle at this hour, under the cover of darkness and blanketed in an all-consuming quiet that seems to swallow everything. It can be slow. Tender. Easy. Warm. Even when what’s left of winter stubbornly refuses to relinquish its hold on the slumbering world, under the covers there is safety and comfort.

There are far worse things to aspire to.

Eren Jaeger is a fool... but that fool drifts further from thought with every passing second.

**Author's Note:**

> So I got this crazy idea that I would write a longfic, and not publish any of it until it was done....  
> but luckily I was convinced of how insane that idea was, and decided not to do that... but not before almost finishing a few chapters. Hopefully that means the next chapter will be posted soonish, but editing takes about 1000x longer than writing nowadays, so we'll see. ;]
> 
> I don't want to spoil anything but there will be at least one other prominent ship in this story.
> 
>  
> 
> Update 2019/07 -- I am so sorry I have not updated in a while. I haven't given up on this story but writing has not exactly been easy recently.


End file.
